John Wick (2014)

Sometimes when traveling, I choose movies I expect not to get too invested in, just in case I miss part of it due to technical difficulties, lack of time, or tiredness. I had already heard this movie summarized as one man killing many men to avenge his dog, which probably wouldn't resonate with me. Nevertheless, it's pretty popular and will soon have a third sequel, so I thought there might be more to it than the summary suggested.

Well, yes, to a point. First, the dog killers also beat John (Keanu Reeves) up at his home and steal his rare fancy car. Second, the dog was a posthumous gift from his late wife (Bridget Moynahan) and thus something of an extension of her. Third, little did they know that John was a legendary hitman, an underworld bogeyman à la Keyser Söze, having retired only for the sake of settling down with his wife. Fourth, lead thug Iosef (Alfie Allen) is the son of a Russian mafia leader, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), who tries to kill John preemptively to protect Iosef. Once you know all this, it's little surprise that John is willing to kill anyone who stands between him and retaliation.

While opinions of Russia have certainly worsened lately, I have to ponder the motivation for including that nationality eight years ago. The actors themselves aren't Russian. It seems a tad politically incorrect by contemporary standards. My best guesses are (1) a mildly exotic flavor to make things more interesting than with American gangsters and (2) less chance of sympathy for John's victims.

It's true that we're not likely to shed tears for any mobsters who are not John, but he's still very much an antihero. He leaves few enemies alive, even after they've done his bidding in order to be spared (then again, their boss would kill them for treachery or failure anyway). Sometimes he kills them when they don't know he's there and are not nearly ready to attack anyone. More often than not, he puts more than one bullet from a semiautomatic into a head.

That brings up the surreal aspects. John always hits exactly where he aims. He spends longer between reloads than I'd think possible. And apart from the early beating, he appears extraordinarily resilient. No wonder he's "Baba Yaga" to Viggo.

If anything herein is innovative, it's in subtle artistic touches. We get a handful of time jumps, and some of the subtitles for Russian are highly stylized, with keywords in red. But you won't see a wide range of colors. Being arguably neo-noir, it's mostly dark. In large part, the filmmakers prefer homages over remote originality.

Some of the most congratulated performances are for roles too minor to mention in my second paragraph. John Leguizamo plays the guy the thugs bring the car to, who's the first to know how badly they screwed up. Willem Dafoe plays a high-end sniper. Ian McShane plays a hotelier who welcomes John Wick and other such sorts, provided they don't kill other guests. And Adrianne Palicki plays John's comrade-turned-assassin, the only woman he sees fit to fight.

In order to enjoy this movie, I think you have to be either very angry or very amoral while watching. The delight is entirely in an unfettered individual totally outdoing an absurd number of others, with an R rating for both violence and swearing. That doesn't cut it for me. At least Bryan in Taken has a nobler reason than revenge.

In these angry days, there is bound to be demand for a JW type, regardless of how the audience claims to feel about guns in real life. I'm not sure whether Chapter 4 will focus on more Russians. For me, it doesn't matter. Nothing short of another bored flight will get me to tune in again.